First World Problems: Strong Soap & Weak Water

Washing hands is an under-appreciated thing.

First World Problems will be a category of my posts in which I highlight and/or rant about a particular issue that bothers me and likely others, but is relatively minute and unimportant...more annoying than actually a problem, and certainly not serious. It will almost always be a problem that is more of an "American" thing to complain about (unnecessary compared to third-world problems like children starving in Africa, but we do it anyway because we're Americans and we love to complain), hence the first-world problem title. I may or may not discuss an easy way to solve it.

Now then, what's this about washing hands?

Every now and then I get up from my computer to wash my hands. It's satisfying to return to typing at my computer with clean hands ready to continue whatever I was doing. But you know what's really lame? When the soap you wash your hands with absolutely refuses to come off.

I was in the hotel my family and I were staying in yesterday before I moved back into college. San Luis Obispo has much thinner water than my hometown of Antelope does. We get water from a well back at my hometown. Here in SLO, we enjoy much thinner, more refined water. It's amazing to drink in comparison.

But the stupid stream refuses to rinse off any soap even moderately well!

It's honestly a seesaw. On one hand, you have amazingly soft water which feels great to drink and shower with. It's very quiet coming out of the tap, and tastes good. But on the other, I sit at a faucet wasting tons of water trying to get soap off of my hands that just clings with all its efforts and refuses to be removed from my hands and flushed down the sink. Even in a hotel where you don't usually pay for water usage, I'm too bothered by the fact that it takes a millennium to rinse my hands off. You don't want to get the hand towel dirty, and you don't want to waste paper drying it off (this is more a restaurant restroom thing).

It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't waste so much water. Either you lose lots of time and water (or kill trees, or get soap all over towels) to get the soap off, or the soap just...stays on your hands. So how do we solve it? The only way I can see is to have a designated towel that can be washed later on, either that or just bite the bullet. I mean, we can't have our cake and eat it too, I really don't see how that's possible in this situation. We certainly don't all have quick access to air dryers in times when this situation may arise.

While on the subject, I still find these a bit awkward to use...

 So as Americans or those with similar mindsets, what do we do? Wash our hands of the situation?

...okay, that was bad and I should feel bad for making that pun. But it seems that the best thing to do would be to use warmer water. If that doesn't work (or if you're more sensitive to quite warm/hot water) then wipe off the soapy residue after a quick rinse on something that you know will be washed in the near future, either that or just live with soapy hands for a while.

It's just annoying. As a twenty-something tech-oriented American, I find it a waste of time and resources to have to stand there and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait for the soap to finally come off after thorough rinsing and rubbing.